ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

This study aimed to reveal how much workers of 5 different job groups(residential care facility, group home, foster care support center, child protective service(CPS) agency workers, and foster care parents) favor reunification of out-of-home children and what factors are associated with this attitude. Total of 414 participants responded to the online survey and various factors were considered as correlates. For example, we examined workers’ experiences with individual cases in the past, perceived environments of inside and outside of organizations, support for families’ participation in decision making, perceptions on their role in supporting families, job groups, age, work experiences, social worker license, etc. to see whether they are associated with worker’s attitude toward reunification. The results showed that foster care parents favored reunification less whereas child protective service workers’ favored more compared to other job groups. Support for families’ participation in decision making was positively associated with favoring reunification. For residential care facility and group home workers as well as foster care parents, experiencing difficulties in reunification of children with disability was associated with favoring reunification positively. For foster care support center and CPS workers, having social work license and perceiving family support as their job was associated with favoring reunification positively whereas questioning reunification as the best option for children was associated with favoring reunification negatively. It was discussed how to support workers to do better in their jobs regarding reunification.

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